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[10]
Ambiguity resulting from
the use of two accusatives may be removed by the
substitution of the ablative: for example, Lachetem
audivi percussisse Demeam (I heard that Demea struck
Laches, or that L. struck D.) may be rendered clear
by writing a Lachete percussum Demeam (that D. was
struck by L.). There is, however, a natural ambiguity in the ablative case itself, as I pointed out
in the first book.1 For example, caelo decurrit aperto2
leaves it doubtful whether the poet means he
hastened down “through the open sky,” or “when
the sky was opened for him to pass.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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